No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for January 12th, 2009

“24” liveblog – over at Blogs.4Bauer

by @ 18:57. Tags:
Filed under Miscellaneous.

As usual, the gang is liveblogging. The fun and (hopefully) the kills begin in less than 4 minutes on your local Fox station (unless you’re on the Left Coast, in which case you’re behind by 3 hours).

The Morni…er, Afternoon Scramble – 1/12/2009

by @ 17:35. Filed under The Morning Scramble.

I’m a bit under the weather, which explains the lateness. How about some Jimmy Buffet to make up for that?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhiTsLr29XA[/youtube]

  • John Hawkins presents the 7th Annual Right Wing News Conservative Blogger Awards.
  • Moe Lane wonders what Sen. Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT) will do to scratch his BDS itch when President Bush is gone.
  • Tom McMahon 4-blocks skills and intentions.
  • Jim Geraghty wonders who is left in the GOP who’s willing to fight. I believe the answer is, “Nobody.”
  • Allahpundit found the expiration dates of Barack Obama’s words have expiration dates – it seems he won’t even wait until the 21st to order Club Gitmo closed even if the order will be slow-played.
  • Ed Driscoll gives the presstitutes’ honeymoon with Obama 4-8 years. The only reason why it won’t be longer is because the “to 10 years” portion of Obama’s Presidency can’t happen.
  • Matthew Continetti finds Newsweek has lached onto Red China as the last, “best” hope of Communism to take over the world.
  • Kevin Fischer gets results – the 2-week “MJS Scorecard” is now all even at 4 pieces apiece. Money says they’ll slip back to their customary 3-1 liberal bias presently.
  • Jon Ham found the next bailout participants – NPR and PBS. Never mind they already get $400 million a year in tax money; they want it more than doubled. I’ll spell out the proper answer – November Oscar.
  • Jim Hoft found anti-Semitism very alive and well among the police in Duisburg, Germany. I’m surprised they, or the Islamokazis they were appeasing, didn’t leave a burning calling card.
  • John points out the fallacy of “cease fires in the name of peace”.
  • Back to bailouts for a second – Stephan Tawney is shocked, SHOCKED that Chrysler wants $3 billion more now (a 75% increase in what it got last month) and an unspecified amount for its finance arm.
  • Nick Schweitzer proves the difference between a private enterprise and a public venture on his and his girlfriend’s way back from Cancun. Those two have lousy timing – they’re back just in time for some serious cold.
  • Mark Tapscott has the latest bit of evidence that closed-door government is unhealthy for the taxpayers.
  • Rob reports the big screen TV ban is about to hit Not-So-Great Britain. For those that don’t think it can’t happen here, I seem to recall an item the other week about California wanting to ban big-screens.
  • Bill Quick offers the perfect solution for safety nannies.
  • Jib dug up the origin of the penalty flag. I can only wonder what would have happened to Orlando Brown if the flags were still weighted with lead.

A couple of housekeeping items that I’m a part of:

– If it’s Monday, the gang at Blogs.4Bauer is live-blogging.
– The January edition of Drinking Right is tomorrow, same place as always (Papa’s Social Club, 7718 W Burleigh in Milwaukee), same time as always (7 pm).

Not All Cuts Are Created Equal

by @ 5:15. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

President elect Barck Obama and team have put out what passes for “detail” in the Obama administration, about Obama’s planned stimulus plan.   You can read the plan here.

I have to give Obama and his team credit.   When Paulson came screaming that the world was coming to and end unless he got $750 billion, he only had 3 pages to outline his plan.   Obama and team, screaming that the world will come to an end unless they get $775 billion,  have managed to use an entire 14 pages to outline their plan.   Well, unless you take out the title page, table of contents and extra white space…then you’re probably down to just 9 or 10 pages.   Even so, Obama has managed to double the number of pages explaining his $775 billion plan.   I guess the extra $25 billion does buy something!

Christina Romer, Obama’s nominee for chair of the Council of Economic Advisors is one of the authors of the plan/document.  

In a paper that Romer published in 2007, she concluded that tax cuts stimulate the economy 3x the amount of the tax cut.   In other words, for ever dollar of tax cut the economy grows by $3.   In Obama’s plan however, Romer and her coauthor argue that “tax cuts” will generate less than $1 of economic stimulus for each $1 of “tax cut.”   How can those be reconciled?

The reconciliation is pretty simple; Obama’s plan has no tax cuts.   Tax cuts are permanent tax reductions.   Rather, what the plan offers is a rebate similar to what was done last year.   They are being called “tax cuts” only because the mechanism proposed to effect them is tied to taxes so as give Republicans and some fiscal conservative Democrats, cover to agree to mortgage our children’s future.

Romer  is a well known and respected economist.   That last fact she allows permanent tax cuts and one time credits to be conflated in this plan is at best, disingenuous and at worse political dishonesty.   In either event, obvious manipulation and misuse of accepted terms as these, calls wholly into question the integrity and accuracy of a plan that even according to its authors is fraught with:

uncertainty (that) is surely higher than normal now because the current recession is unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity.

Republicans in Congress ought to be smarter than to fall for a one time credit that is called a “tax cut.”   They ought to be, we’ll have to see if they are.

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